


Last Stop

by theclockiscomplete



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2639885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclockiscomplete/pseuds/theclockiscomplete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor makes a final stop before his regeneration to say goodbye to an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Stop

**Author's Note:**

> Written two years ago, but again left to rot in my documents folder, bounced from one broken computer to the new one. This is my headcanon. Ten stopped to say goodbye to everyone else, so I imagine he said a proper goodbye to Donna, even if we didn't get to see it.

The man strode down the long white corridor with a look in his eyes that suggested he knew exactly where he was going and would brook no argument. He passed a bald young girl in a wheelchair clutching a tattered dinosaur in frail fingers. She watched his eyes as he approached and found herself wanting someone to be that determined when they came to see her. He didn’t shuffle like the sad ones, or jazz run like the desperate ones, but his warm eyes suggested the sum of every feeling she’d witnessed since her admittance eight months ago. He locked gazes with her for a long moment, and then he had passed her completely and all she saw was the back of a tousled head and a fluttering coat.  
  
The Doctor halted at room 302 and traced steady fingertips over the plastic covering the name inserted in the slot: Noble, D. Faint beeping came from behind the wooden door. The Doctor withdrew his sonic. It gleamed dully in the fluorescent lighting, the blue orb less shiny. Lots of things had been less shiny since…well. The Doctor aimed the sonic at the door and pushed it open when the metal handle clicked down. The telly was on but mute, flickering colors illuminating the dark room. The Doctor took a deep breath and turned the corner to get a full view of the woman lying motionless in the hospital bed. Donna was sleeping, but the Doctor knew from the future obituary that she had less than an hour to live. Brain cancer, Wilfred had said. Passed away in the middle of the afternoon with no warning. “But it’s all right,” he’d said, blue eyes glistening. “We got to say goodbye before then.” It was one of two reasons he’d come to be here on this day, why he’d allowed himself this trip. One, he would not be encroaching on the time she had left with her family, and two, he owed it to her. He hadn’t been able to tell Wilf, to look him in the face and tell Donna’s grandfather that it wasn’t cancer attacking Donna’s brain. It was the block of memory he’d been forced to section off. He’d bought her time—about five years—but the human mind could not hold that power, even when it didn’t know it was there. The Doctor switched on the lamp over Donna’s bed. The soft light made the deep hollows in her face fill out a little, made her look like the Donna he’d traveled across the stars with. For a moment, it was easy to forget…he pointed the sonic screwdriver at the beeping heart monitor and muted the volume, just as Donna’s eyes fluttered open. She took a moment to look the Doctor up and down, another moment to realize she didn’t know him, and another to say,  
  
“Who are you? Get out this instant or I’ll—“ but it was as far as she got. The Doctor placed one hand over her brow and looked away as he lowered the defenses of his friend’s mind. He turned back after a few seconds and watched her glassy eyes fill with knowledge and light, watched them begin to brighten. She gasped and clutched at his wrist—not to push him away, but to hold him closer. He shut his eyes against the feeling; her grip was childlike and all wrong for the strong-willed woman he cared for. “Doctor,” she gasped, looking up into his brown eyes. “Oh, Doctor.” Inexplicably, the both began to laugh, quiet, breathy laughs of two people who have not seen each other in a long while but must not disturb the area around them. Abruptly, Donna whacked the Doctor across the chest as hard as she could. He coughed, surprised. He’d felt that. “You cad!” Donna whispered. “You let me…all of this, and I went back to just being a temp with two point five children and a—a husband and buggering normal life, how could you?”  
  
“It was killing you,” the Doctor said gently. He smoothed her hair under on palm, gripping her hand in his other. “You had all the knowledge of a Time Lord. Even now I’m keeping that part hidden or you’ll burn up in five seconds flat. I wanted to be here with you, today, without hurting you.”  
  
“You can just get out of my head and let me remember whatever the hell I want!” The words were hollow; there was no room for anger here, not now. The Doctor half-smiled and glanced up at the clock. Three-oh-seven. Donna followed his gaze. “How long have I got?” she asked.  
  
“As near as I can tell, about thirty minutes. I didn’t press your family for details when I ran into them in the future.”  
“How were they getting on? You know…without me.”  
  
The Doctor hesitated. “They were…relieved they got to say goodbye.” Donna nodded slowly.  
  
“Sorry, but…are you…did you?”  
  
“I think I may have,” the Doctor said. “If I’d let the memories remain, you would have…”  
  
“I would have had a lot less time than I got,” Donna said, grasping the Doctor’s wrist. “You bought me time. Gave me a future. Without the TARDIS, at that.” They both smiled, and then Donna winced. Concerned, The Doctor reached for her temple. Her glare stopped him cold. “You keep those…memory-stealing hands away from me, alien boy.”  
  
“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. He placed his hands behind his back, out of temptation’s grasp.  
  
“Those headaches have been happening a lot lately,” Donna said. She looked up at him. “I saw things every now and then, things I couldn’t make sense of. I thought they were dreams.” She peered at him. “You don’t look good,” she said.  
  
Indeed, The Doctor had been doing his best to hide the rolling energy in his guts as his body prepared to regenerate. Nevertheless, he cracked a smile. “Says you.”  
  
“You look the way you did that one time on the TARDIS, the day you made me forget. You were—oh my God.” The Doctor clutched at his stomach and leaned forward, grasping the railing. “You’re doing that thing. You’re regenerating.”  
  
“Yep,” The Doctor glanced at the clock. Three minutes.  
  
Donna winced. “My head…”  
  
The Doctor took a deep breath and gripped Donna’s hand. He wasn’t sure how long he had in his current body, but he knew that even if he regenerated right there on the spot—he grinned a little at the thought of a fainting nurse requiring another nurse—he would be there when Donna died. He reached for her head.  
  
She tried to glare at him. She tried very hard. “What are you doing?” she managed.  
  
“I’m just going to inhibit a few pain receptors,” The Doctor said. “It’s not going to slow the process, but you won’t feel it. You’ll just…drift off to sleep in a few minutes.”  
  
Donna hesitated, then nodded, eyes still shut against the pain. Her grip on The Doctor’s hand was rigid. He reached out and touched her temple, willing the pain away. Her brain flashed warning signals at him, reminding him that the pain was necessary to tell the body that something was terribly wrong. The Doctor acknowledged their signaling and silenced them. Donna immediately relaxed, slumping against the pillow. “Wow,” she said. “I feel invincible.”  
  
“Don’t move,” The Doctor said.  
  
“I know, I know.” She glanced up at him. “It’s just…I haven’t felt this good since that time we were all flying the TARDIS together. You had your Rose, everyone was so happy…” her eyes glazed momentarily.  
  
“Yes,” The Doctor said. “Hold onto that. Dwell on it. Remember that feeling til your last breath, Donna Noble.” He glanced at the clock and cursed inwardly. He didn’t have to see the time to know exactly when her last breath would be. For once, he hated his faultless ability to keep track of time to the last millisecond.  
  
“I will,” she said, clear-eyed once more. “And all of the other times we had. I wouldn’t change a second of it. Well, except maybe that one time with the fat. That was a little more unusual than normal.” They both smiled. “Don’t travel alone, Doctor.” His face grew serious. “Whatever face you’re wearing, have someone with you. The first face you see.”  
  
“It won’t be me seeing it,” he said. “It’ll be some other bloke with my memories.”  
  
“Exactly.” Donna’s eyes began to flutter closed. The Doctor lay a hand on her brow.  
  
“It’s alright,” The Doctor said. “Sleep.” He closed his eyes and called far back in his memory, to a time when he was loved and belonged on Gallifrey. His childhood had been punctuated with ruthless timelord efficiency, but he had flawless memories of his mother singing to him before the academy. He let the words of his mother’s lullaby course through his mind into Donna’s as her consciousness slipped away. A few seconds later, she relaxed. The heart monitor beeped that neverending beep, sudden and shrill in the still room. The Doctor stared at Donna for a long moment, then turned and left.


End file.
